


Riding in Cars With Girls

by PoeticallyIrritating



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 15:59:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1393681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoeticallyIrritating/pseuds/PoeticallyIrritating
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teenage Cosima kissing girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Riding in Cars With Girls

**Author's Note:**

> I had this whole plan where I was going to write about everyone Cosima's ever kissed, but this ended up being the part I cared about.

At the end of her junior year, a willowy blonde girl from Cosima’s history class was assigned to her in a group project. Isabelle was tall and slender, and she wore tight jeans and didn’t wear bras and Cosima grinned when she got the assignment (and then cursed under her breath because it was going to be hell). Cosima—with hair almost long enough to sit on and new glasses with red frames—headed to Isabelle’s house in her clunker of a used car, a European History textbook in the passenger seat.

Isabelle shone; she was popular and upbeat. When she opened the door, she hugged Cosima and offered her a smoothie. “I was just making some,” she said. “It’s the only way my mom will let me eat ice cream.”

Cosima laughed and said “sure,” and was almost immediately handed a glass. Isabelle led the way to her bedroom, which turned out to be already equipped with poster board and a variety of craft supplies. “So,” said Isabelle. “Anne Boleyn. The chick with the missing head, right?”

“Right.”

“I’ll tell you right now I’m way better at the design part of this than the actual history part. So if you want to look up the info we need while I block out our poster, that would be cool. I can help with the research if you want, though.”

Isabelle’s lip-gloss smile was infectious; Cosima grinned back and said, “Nah, man, I can definitely do research.”

“I wish I was good at that,” said Isabelle. “But my mind just gets all twisted up.”

Cosima nodded, already flipping through the textbook for the relevant chapter. “Yeah, I don’t know. I’m thinking that might be what I want to do, you know? Like, with my life.”

“Research?” Isabelle looked up from the perfectly straight lines she had been making in pencil on the poster board.

“Uh, yeah,” said Cosima. Isabelle was leaning over the poster board and Cosima carefully looked away from her shirt and the way it fell open. “I mean, science, not history. But I could kind of see myself doing that for—well, ever.”

“That’s so cool,” said Isabelle, and something about the way she was looking at her made Cosima think she meant it. “I wish I knew what to do with my life.”

“I think I’ve always known, kind of,” said Cosima. Her hand started going off, tracing nonsense patterns in the air. “I started asking for a microscope when I was, like, six.”

“When I was six I cut all my Barbies’ hair off,” Isabelle said, grinning. “I was gonna give them cute short haircuts but instead it stood straight up and I threw them all away.” She leaned over again and Cosima took in a significant amount of air and might have started to silently pray. “You okay?” Isabelle asked, looking up.

“Totally,” said Cosima, who had turned her eyes back to the textbook.

“How does this look?” Isabelle flipped around the poster board so Cosima could see the layout she’d created. Cosima leaned forward and nodded, actually impressed with how neat and well-organized it was. She looked up again to tell Isabelle as much, but Isabelle’s face was a lot closer than she’d expected.

And then she leaned closer, and there were lips on Cosima’s lips and she tried to react but by the time she’d gotten over her shock, Isabelle had pulled away.

“I’m sorry—” Isabelle began, but Cosima cut her off.

“No,” she said. “Seriously, don’t be sorry.”

Isabelle bit her lip and Cosima felt a little bit like swooning. “What do you mean?”

“You just don’t need to apologize,” said Cosima. “And, uh, I’d really like it if you would do that again.” Her face felt hot, but she refused to look away again. She locked eyes with Isabelle, whose smile turned crooked and mischievous. She slid the poster board out of the way and moved close, more purposeful this time. She reached out first and touched Cosima’s neck, curled her hand around it, and then leaned in.

Isabelle was soft and she smelled like shampoo. As soon as Cosima felt like she had figured out how to respond to slow and gentle, Isabelle slid her hand around Cosima’s waist and teased her bottom lip with her teeth. Cosima gasped against her mouth; Isabelle’s responding giggle was muffled by Cosima’s lips.

They sat back to breathe for a moment. Cosima looked, almost in awe, at Isabelle’s flushed cheeks. She felt warm all the way through, and it only took a moment for her to muster enough courage to initiate. Isabelle’s back was near the foot of her bed, and when Cosima moved in, she pressed her against it. She did it gently, but it was enough that Isabelle let out a soft whimper before Cosima captured her lips. Liking the sound, Cosima moved closer, sliding in so her knees straddled Isabelle’s thighs. She pushed Isabelle’s shoulders against the bed, hard; she caught Isabelle’s mouth with hers and her hand tangled in long blonde hair.

“You learn fast,” Isabelle said, when she finally had a second to breathe.

Cosima grinned, flashing her teeth for a moment before leaning in to use them properly.

They might never have stopped if not for a knock on the door. Cosima leapt away, scrambling to pick up the textbook.

“Honey? Can I come in for a sec?”

“Okay,” Isabelle called.

Isabelle’s mother was taller than Isabelle, but less blonde. “How’s your project going?”

Cosima eyed the mostly-blank poster board, then looked away, hoping not to draw attention to it.

“Getting lots of good research done,” said Isabelle brightly.

“On…” Her mother squinted at the page the book was open to. “The Black Death? I thought your topic was Anne Boleyn.”

“Oh, just…background…reading,” said Isabelle.

“You’re very thorough.” Her mom smiled, and Cosima could have sworn she saw her wink at Isabelle. “I just wanted to see if your friend is staying for dinner.”

“Right.” Isabelle nodded slowly. “Um, are you staying for dinner, Cosima?”

“Sure!” She smiled too brightly at Isabelle’s mother.

“Okay, then, um, we should probably get some more work done.”

When her mother had left, Isabelle raised her eyes slowly to look at Cosima again. She was shaking with silent laughter, and Cosima found herself joining in.

At the end of the night, full of lasagna and toting one completed Anne Boleyn poster, Cosima headed out.

“Walk Cosima to the door, honey,” called Isabelle’s mother. “She’s your guest; be polite.”

“Way ahead of you, Mom,” said Isabelle.

Unexpectedly, she followed Cosima outside. “Isabelle, what’re you—” Cosima began.

She shut the door behind her and tilted her head, pausing for a moment before speaking. The gloss had come off of her lips, what with the kissing and the eating, and if anything it made Cosima want to revisit them even more. “Um, if you want to come over again, I think I’d like that.”

Her smile was small, barely more than a nervous twitch at the corners of her mouth, but Cosima saw it and responded with a grin. “Any time.” She felt warm all over, even though San Francisco was foggy in the late spring and her T-shirt wasn’t enough to keep off the chill. And, maybe just to spread the heat that was building inside her, she kissed Isabelle one more time before nearly tripping down the stairs to her car.

They never went on a real date; they were both broke and nervous about rumors. They made out in Cosima’s car a lot (pressed close together by necessity, legs tangled up, someone’s hip always pressing against the gear shift) and sometimes, when her parents were out, Isabelle came over to Cosima’s house and they luxuriated in the space that her bed allowed.

Cosima helped Isabelle study for chemistry and Isabelle made bad jokes about different kinds of chemistry in an attempt to derail the conversation. The clutter on Cosima’s floor was from two different people now and she had to admit that she kind of liked having to call up Isabelle at ten p.m. to tell her that she had left her math homework under a pile of Cosima’s old tests, liked stealing swift kisses on the doorstep when Isabelle picked up her forgotten assignments.

Summer in San Francisco meant cold and foggy, and Cosima and Isabelle wandered the city in jeans and sweatshirts. Cosima pulled Isabelle behind buildings and kissed her hard against their walls. Isabelle made a soft, breathy sound when she was pushed against things and Cosima thought she might be falling in love with it.

Cosima’s parents left for a conference in early August and Isabelle took up residence in Cosima’s bedroom for three days. “You’re just trying to get into my pants,” Isabelle said when Cosima suggested the plan.

Cosima grinned unabashedly. “Well, not _just_.”

She succeeded on day number two. Isabelle spent a while trying to be vague in her directions, not saying words that would make her blush, but finally she gave up and Cosima relished her uncharacteristic vulgarity. Isabelle’s head hit the wall with a crash and Cosima giggled into her skin.

In October Isabelle’s father got a job offer in Philadelphia and she was gone so suddenly that Cosima barely had time to prepare. They had a long conversation on the phone one night about the pros and cons of long-distance relationships and Cosima wiped tears on her sleeve as they decided, very reasonably, that it wouldn’t make sense to try.


End file.
